


kiss each other clean

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Lie Low At Lupin's (Harry Potter), M/M, Queer Character, gay pep talks, soft, the amount of happiness in this fic is really stretching the definition of canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 08:32:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18869563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: It was like they'd taken a left-hand turn into a universe without the War, without any of their troubles; just this one Welsh village and a hopelessly large number of courgettes.





	kiss each other clean

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gothzabini (girl412)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl412/gifts).



> a soft wolfstar for ivy. <3 thank you to kayla, renaissance and galvelociraptor for helping me along the way!

Remus woke to find Padfoot on his sofa, curled up in the dead centre and snoring softly. He shouldn’t have been able to get past the wards — but Remus found that he didn’t much care how Sirius had managed it, and the worry he should have felt was suffocated by the overwhelming _muchness_ of the fact that Sirius was here, in his house. A ray of sunlight peeked through the faded blue curtains, illuminating the dust motes in the air above Padfoot, and Remus held his breath. He stood on the stairs for too long, just looking, but eventually his stomach rumbled. The day had to begin, even as he wanted to preserve this moment as long as possible. 

A floorboard creaked under foot and Padfoot stirred, his ear twitching and then suddenly he was a man, too thin and in need of a haircut. Remus had seen him just a few weeks ago in that cave of his, but it felt entirely different now. There had been some kind of surreal quality to the cave, one where he could pretend that the events were not entirely real. His living room was about as real as it got.

Before he could think of what to say, Sirius spoke. “Voldemort’s back.”

It rather put a damper on Remus’s mood.

“How?” It was so stupid to imagine perhaps — perhaps Sirius had been here just to be with him, to live with him now that the Aurors weren’t actively searching for him and the Triwizard Tournament had ended yesterday, if the _Prophet_ had been right about the schedule.

It felt less surprising than it should that Voldemort was back. Sure, he’d assumed Voldemort was dead, but somehow it was as if Voldemort’s return was just the next logical step for a universe to take when it had already given Remus lycanthropy, made the love of his life a wanted felon and forced him to live through a war that took all his friends from him.

“It’s not important, the Triwizard Cup was a portkey to a graveyard and — I’ll fill you in properly when we’ve notified everyone. Dumbledore said to get the old guard back together.”

“Yes. I — you make a list while I make breakfast. Toast with jam?” It felt so natural to fall back into the war and Remus hated the familiarity.

“Please.”

The joy he’d felt for just a moment had popped like a balloon, and Remus felt the sting of it as he made breakfast for two.

* * *

A long day followed of breaking the news again and again to members of the Order — Moody took it best, of course; Dung was a mess; Mrs Figg was surprisingly stoic, grim-faced and asking no questions. After that it was a collection of identical disbelief, horror and resignation as ghosts returned to haunt people’s faces. People had managed to adjust to peace. Hell, the fact that Sirius had been able to get into his cottage was proof that even Remus had adjusted to peace, becoming soft around the edges and forgetting the hypervigilance of knowing your life was always in danger.

When they had told everyone they could think of, they returned to Remus’s cottage. The late afternoon June sun lingered in the sky, bathing everything in warmth. Remus suddenly felt embarrassed that he’d never got around to pruning the lilac bush in the front garden. A breeze carried the scent towards them as they stood in the front garden. Sirius had paused at the gate, scrutinising — Remus’s lack of gardening expertise? The way the cottage was falling into disrepair?

Before Remus could really start to spiral, though, Sirius spoke.

“You have a lovely home,” he said softly.

Remus blinked, turning to face the cottage again. All he could see were the shingles missing from the roof, the paint peeling off the siding, the rickety front steps. His first instinct was to make some snarky comment, but Sirius, he realised — Sirius had spent the last twelve years in hell (to say nothing of… well, most of his life before that). Looking at it from his point of view, the cottage might as well be a palace.

“Thank you,” he said, clearing his throat to get rid of the way his voice had suddenly become scratchy. “Er, we should probably get inside.”

“Probably. Could I cook? I think this is the first time I’ve had access to a stove since… since 1981, I guess.”

“Of course,” Remus said. “I think there’s some chicken in the fridge? And Dafydd gave me more courgettes than I know what to do with.” 

Sirius launched into the task of cooking with merry abandon, and they didn’t talk about Voldemort at all. Instead it was “who’s Dafydd” and “how could he expect one man to eat so many courgettes” and “did you make this sponge cake? Have you taken up baking?”

The answers to those questions were: 1) Dafydd was a Muggle who was ostensibly the postman but also had been cursed with a green thumb and was offloading as many courgettes as he could get away with to anyone in a ten mile radius, 2) Remus was terrible at saying no, and 3) The Women’s Institute said he looked like he needed it, since he didn’t have anyone at home to bake for him. Surprisingly, they hadn’t set him up with anyone’s daughter, which was very nice of them.

At this last, Sirius rolled his eyes and (for the first time in this house, in Remus’s house, while he’s cooking them both dinner and there’s flour on his nose from whatever he was doing with the courgettes) kissed him, putting a hand in Remus’s hair and making him look as if he’s gone greyer than he had. Remus laughed into his mouth and his whole body felt light with the knowledge that Sirius was here, and loved him, and the WI probably knew he wouldn’t want to date anyone’s daughters.

Dinner was the best courgettes he’d ever tasted, which was saying something because he’d had courgettes every night for the past week, and would inevitably be having courgettes every night for the foreseeable future. He almost asked what the recipe was, but realised as he opened his mouth that he didn’t have to — he could just ask Sirius to make it again. 

It was probably foolish to refuse to plan for the future, especially now that Voldemort was back, but Remus wanted to live in this for at least a little while. 

The next two days were Sirius and Remus playing house, as they had never been able to before, with the war in full swing. Sirius put bookmarks in all three of Remus’s cookbooks (Christmas gifts; Remus hadn’t the heart to tell anyone he was Jewish) and cooked a different recipe for every meal, some of which were more successful than others.

“I’ve been in prison! And then on the run! It’s a miracle this is the first time I’ve served you something inedible,” Sirius said after Remus took a single bite of — whatever this was supposed to be and pulled a face, barely managing to swallow it. Sirius had looked so happy in the kitchen, delighting in experimentation — he’d first learnt to cook as an act of rebellion when he still lived at Grimmauld Place and even now, he took a thrill from it.

“Did I say anything? You’re too defensive, my love. We could go to the pub?”

Which is how they ended up at the local, Sirius stealing bites of Remus’s steak and kidney and studiously avoiding the mushy peas. Before they’d left the house that first morning to notify the Order, Remus had watched anxiously as Sirius transfigured his nose, his eyes, gave himself higher cheekbones. It was hardly an optimal solution — for one, it would be absurdly dangerous to do it over and over, so there was no point in undoing it when they were alone — but it meant they didn’t have to hide. They’d even practised Sirius’s fake name: Stubby Boardman. Sirius insisted, and Remus didn’t have the heart to fight him on it. When Remus went to the bar to get pints for them both, he was (foolishly) caught by surprise by the interrogation that followed.

“He’s from out of town,” Gareth said as he pulled the first pint. “Visiting?”

Remus realised he hadn’t even asked. He saw no reason he _couldn’t_ stay, although presumably if the search for Known Fugitive Sirius Black heated up again he might have to go to ground. Sirius certainly hadn’t mentioned anything.

“No, I think he’s staying,” Remus said with a smile. Gareth looked surprised, and Remus fancied he could see how desperate he was to ring around and get this new information about him on the grapevine. He should have been more nervous, or perhaps more circumspect, but Remus found it difficult to care when it honestly felt like it had when they first started dating. Nothing could touch them.

“Nain’ll want to know everything,” Gareth said, putting the second pint on the bar and holding out his hand. Remus handed over three pounds and nodded, heaving a sigh.

“I guess I can’t give you the short version to save her the trouble?”

“She’ll come round anyway.”

“I know. Cheers, Gareth,” he said, taking the pints back to the table. They stayed until Sirius was unsteady on his feet (not half as difficult as it would have been, since he’d not had any alcohol lately) and too handsy for his own good. Remus caught Gareth looking, cleaning glasses and watching them with a smile. 

It was a weight lifted, one that he’d not thought he was carrying, to know that no one expressed any disapproval at his relationship with Sirius. Gareth approved, which would take care of at least half the village, and half a dozen more people saw them in the pub, surprised that Remus had a visitor for the first time in years but not at all surprised that the visitor kept trying to steal kisses. Remus heard Judith whisper, “Well, that explains quite a lot,” to her husband as they walked away, and for the first time in about fifteen years he honest-to-God giggled. 

Soon after, they went home, and kept laughing as they stumbled up the stairs into Remus’s room. Sirius rolled his eyes at Remus’s monkish single bed and made short work of transforming it into something far more suitable as he slowly undressed Remus, hampered by the fact that he didn’t want to stop kissing him long enough to make good progress. 

Eventually, they were naked enough for the proceedings, and Remus once again felt that acute embarrassment as Sirius scrutinised his body — the scars he’d gained since they’d last been naked together fifteen years ago, the way age had made itself known on his skin and the way his left knee was sore if he overdid it the day before. And even though Remus could see nothing but flaws, Sirius just smiled and kissed his way across Remus’s skin as if reacquainting himself with a home you returned to after a long time away. 

Sirius didn’t mention all the changes Remus was sure he’d noticed, and soon enough a combination of frankly underhanded tricks had Remus completely distracted. Sirius, too, had changed — new scars, new angles, new ways time had marked and worn at him. When Remus noticed them it reminded him too much of all the time they’d lost, so he simply refused to notice or acknowledge them. 

Afterwards, Sirius fell asleep before they’d even had a chance to clean up. Some things, at least, were the same.

* * *

At first, they expected Dumbledore to send for them at any moment — he’d not given Sirius any further instructions — but as the days became a week became two, nothing actually happened.

Mrs Thomas came around, just as Gareth had said she would, and was horrified at how skinny Sirius still was. “You’re bad enough,” she said, poking Remus in the chest, “but he’s worse! Have neither of you seen a potato?”

“We’re still trying to get through all the courgettes,” Sirius said, and she nodded as if that were an acceptable excuse for how Remus could see all of Sirius’s ribs when he undressed.

“Well,” she said, “surely you’re not eating courgettes with every meal? My cousin in Llandudno came ‘round a few months ago — you remember her, Remus, surely — and she brought me far too much candied peel, from some shop down there. I’ll bring you ‘round some bara brith — have you tried that, Stubby? — it’s lovely with tea.”

“That’s really not necessary, Mrs Thomas,” Remus tried to say, but she dismissed him with a wave of her hand, and sure enough, she showed up several days later with far too much bara brith for the two of them to get through, and a jar of homemade preserves to boot.

The news that Remus Lupin had a gentleman friend spread like wildfire and soon after, so did the information that his gentleman friend was terribly underfed. Everyone who had ever gone to Remus for a tin of joint cream (the charms on it were so mild that he had plenty of plausible deniability), and some who hadn’t, came over to ogle the stranger in their midst. After the pub outing, they’d agreed that despite the Transfiguration, it was probably best to minimise the amount of time Sirius spent in public, since there was no point in tempting fate. 

One afternoon as Remus was buying milk, Graeme Jones asked after Sirius’s health. “Is he ill, or is Bethan just wildly exaggerating?”

“He’s had a hard time,” Remus said, not really thinking of what would come next. It was a carefully edited version of the truth — but not carefully edited enough.

“A hard time with what?”

Remus froze for a second, scrambling, and said, “His, uh, brother died. James. It was very sudden. He… they were very close. Stubby didn’t take it well.”

He hadn’t meant to call James Sirius’s brother — it had just slipped out — but it felt fitting. “Best friend” seemed too small. The fact that the grief was fourteen years old was immaterial; Remus still felt it whenever he thought of Harry or when it snowed, remembering James’s enthusiasm for snowball fights. 

“Grief is a funny thing,” Graeme said, nodding sagely. “No wonder the poor dab’s so thin. How’s he doing now?”

“Better, I think,” he replied, and didn’t try to hide the fondness in his voice. 

Remus was inordinately proud of himself as Graeme said his goodbyes with a promise to stop by later in the week with some of Bronwen’s vanilla slice. 

Mostly, it felt like they had exited time completely — had taken a left-hand turn out of the universe with a war and a murder conviction and into one that consisted of this small Welsh village and nothing else. Their biggest problems were the prospect of eating so many courgettes they simply became two human-sized green vegetables, and the way Mrs Williams arrived one morning just in time for morning tea, intent on simultaneously being cross with Remus and cleaning him all out of digestive biscuits. She had Rhys Williams in tow, her sixteen-year-old grandson Remus had seen about occasionally but never spoken to. He had a round, freckled face and a haircut that meant he was constantly brushing hair out of his eyes. He also looked like he’d rather be just about anywhere else, which Remus could sympathise with.

“Bethan said you’re gay now,” she began, and Remus struggled to keep a straight face as Sirius had a coughing fit behind him. 

Rhys looked mortified and opened his mouth to say something, but Remus shook his head slightly and Rhys closed his mouth, slumping.

“I’ve always been gay, Mrs Williams,” Remus said, putting on the kettle as Mrs Williams and Rhys sat down, Rhys picking the one furthest from Mrs Williams as if he could disown her. “This is just the first time anyone’s noticed.”

“Why didn’t you help out our Rhys then?”

Remus looked at Rhys with mild bemusement. Apart from the fact that he’d gone bright red and seemed to be willing himself to sink through the floor, Rhys looked perfectly fine. 

“What do you mean?” Remus asked.

“He came out a few months ago and he’s been getting teased at school for it,” Mrs Williams said, oddly accusatory as if Remus were the one mocking him. 

“I’m… not sure how to help? I’m happy to talk, Rhys, if you need anything — it doesn’t have to be now, you know where I live and can come any time. I don’t think I have terribly much sway over teenagers I’ve never met, I’m afraid.”

“I could teach him how to throw a punch,” Sirius offered, bringing over four mugs as Remus got the kettle. 

“Stubby,” Remus said, “I don’t think violen—”

“Come off it, you’re a crock of shit, of course violence works.”

“Stubby!”

“I am sure Rhys already knows the word ‘shit’, love.”

Remus put his head in his hands. Mrs Williams would never make her famous shortbread for him again.

“I just don’t think violence is the right message to be sending,” Remus said with the tone of a man desperately trying to salvage a rapidly-sinking boat. “But if it comes to that, it’s better that you get some pointers first, Rhys. You can break your hand very easily if you do it incorrectly. Of course, the best way to not break your hand is not to fight anyone.”

Rhys nodded, still bright red. Mrs Williams cleared her throat and said, “Can I use your loo, bach?”

Once she was gone, Remus dropped what Sirius termed his Old Lady Persona and elbowed Sirius sharply in the ribs. How dare he jeopardise Remus’s shortbread supply. Remus leant over the table and said quietly, “I’m sorry I didn’t hear you’d come out, Rhys, or that anyone was giving you trouble. I definitely wouldn’t advocate throwing the first punch, but defending yourself is perfectly reasonable — you’ll want to have your thumb on the outside of your fist, obviously, and try to punch with your first two knuckles so you don’t break your fingers. Keep your weight—”

The toilet flushed, and Remus straightened back up and took a sip of tea. “Do come to me if any adults make you feel unsafe, though, and I can have a word with them.”

“Thank you, Mr Lupin,” Rhys mumbled as Mrs Williams returned to the table. She nodded approvingly at the exchange. Remus wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted, but apparently this was good enough?

“Bethan told me about your brother, Stubby,” Mrs Williams said, dunking a digestive in her tea. “James, I believe she said his name was? I’m very sorry for your loss, bach.”

Remus and Sirius both froze. “Thank you,” Sirius said, carefully, raising an eyebrow at Remus, who tried to express his contrition purely by facial expression.

After eating all but one of Remus’s digestives, Mrs Williams and Rhys left. Sirius closed the door and dissolved into laughter, saying, “Bethan said you’re gay now,” before kissing Remus thoroughly. Remus kissed him back with enthusiasm, but Sirius soon pulled away, much to his displeasure, and added, “And what’s this about my brother?”

“He died,” Remus said, helplessly.

“So I heard, yes.”

“I could hardly say you look like a skeleton because you spent twelve years in a torture prison and then two years in caves, could I! I panicked!”

“I only spent one year in a cave, the year before that it was a very pleasant time in the West Indies, actually. No caves at all.”

Remus rolled his eyes. “Shut up. You had a brother called James who died suddenly, and that’s why you need the WI to fatten you up. You should make yesterday’s courgette dish for Sunday. They won’t let you into the WI or anything, but I’m sure everyone will be clamouring for the recipe. God, when does courgette season end?”

“You know you can just say no to Dafydd, right,” Sirius said. “It’s not like he’ll die.”

“You haven’t seen his face! He gets all—” Remus attempted to replicate the expression, but Sirius just laughed at him. 

“Such a pushover, I can’t believe you taught children for a whole year. Did they wobble their bottom lip and you just fell over yourself trying to make it better?”

“No, I was a perfectly good teacher, as I’m sure Harry has told you. That’s quite enough insulting from you.”

“Yeah, yeah, you love me.”

“Of course I do, though God knows why,” Remus said, but the way he pulled Sirius in for a kiss indicated he wasn’t so committed to the ‘why’.

* * *

It was three days later when Rhys appeared once again at the door, though this time without a well-meaning chaperone. He blushed when Remus opened the door (though surely he knew that would happen, knocking on Remus’s door?) and mumbled, “Could I have a chat?” and was now sitting, nursing a mug of tea and staring at the table without saying a word.

This was fine with Remus, who went back to doing the crossword. He’d just finished neatly writing in ‘incorrigible’ (unable to be redeemed, twelve letters) when Rhys cleared his throat. “How long have you been out?”

Remus put down his pen. “Depends what you mean. To my parents? To my schoolmates? To the rest of the village?”

“Well obviously you weren’t out to the village until last week.”

“I’d not be sounding so certain. There was plenty of clucking about how I had no one at home to cook for me, but no one ever mentioned conveniently single daughters. Whatever it means, I wasn’t a romantic prospect.”

Rhys opened his mouth, closed it, and frowned in thought.

“... Maybe. How long have you been out to — to whoever you think matters for that sort of thing?”

Remus noticed that Rhys’s fingernails were raggedy and some of them even looked like they’d bled. As Remus considered his question, Rhys bit his thumbnail, worrying at it.

“It was — it was different, in my day. I was lucky, since it was partially decriminalised back when I was in primary school, but it still wasn’t very… it’s not like it is now.” Remus was surprised at how difficult it was to talk about, how scattered his thoughts were. Part of it was surely that he had to make up half of it, ensuring it lined up with the muggle timeline of things — but he’d also never put much thought into what being ‘out’ meant. He had so many secrets that this was probably the least of them.

“I didn’t come out to my parents until I started dating Stubby — no point in borrowing trouble.” Rhys’s eyebrows shot up and Remus smiled. “We’ve — we first started dating when we were both sixteen. I know we both look older than we are because the world hasn’t been terribly kind to us, but it wasn’t that lon—” Remus stopped in the middle of the word, suddenly realising that actually, it _was_ that long ago. It was 1995. “Well, I guess twenty years is a long time.”

It was as Remus was struggling with the passage of time that Sirius called out from the kitchen, “Moony, d’you want a cuppa?”

“I’m alright, thanks,” he called back and tried to remember what he’d been talking about. “We were both lucky, I think, because we had — had friends that would stick up for us if people gave us any trouble.” He closed his eyes for a moment, willing the physical ache in his chest to go away. “They’re both dead now, but they were… they were important.” The words felt so insignificant, so tiny compared to the love Remus had felt at school, before they got involved in the war.

“I’m sorry, you don’t have to talk about this,” Rhys said, and Remus opened his eyes again. Rhys was looking miserable at the idea that he’d caused Remus pain.

“It’s fine,” Remus said, shaking his head. “It’s been fourteen years.” He should be better at this — and yet here he was, barely holding it together.

“What’s — oh, hullo, Rhys,” Sirius said from the doorway. “I should leave you to it.”

“No, I — you can sit if you want,” Rhys said, and Sirius shrugged and sat next to Remus.

“What are we talking about?”

“Rhys asked how long I’d been out. I said it was too complicated — too many people, ‘out’ isn’t really a line you can draw. And then because I’m a miserable old man I got stuck thinking about — about James and Peter.”

“Fuck Peter,” Sirius said. “He’s a murderer, he doesn’t deserve anything from you.”

“What?” Rhys said, eyes wide in alarm.

“Peter murdered James. It’s — a long story, and it doesn’t matter. Si— Stubby is right, but people are more complicated than that. What Peter did was horrible, but I still miss who he was before he did it.” Remus rubbed at his face. “What you’ll find, Rhys, is that adulthood is overrated and everything is much simpler when you’re at school. Not necessarily better, but simpler.”

“Do try not to become friends with a murderer though, that’ll neatly sidestep the whole issue.”

Remus let out a tired bark of laughter at Sirius’s words. 

“I’m sorry, Rhys, what was it that you wanted to know?”

“How — how did you get together?”

Remus couldn’t help his grin as he glanced at Sirius.

“We went to boarding school together,” he began. “So we became friends there, when we were eleven.”

“I came out when I was sixteen and was promptly thrown out of home, so I spent a solid half of Sixth Year snogging any boy who’d give me the time of day, often in public places so my brother would know I did it,” Sirius said, almost wistfully. “The snogging wasn’t very good, but the revenge on my family was tops.”

“Accordingly, I spent half of Sixth Year miserably pining,” Remus said, still with his involuntary, lovesick grin. “It was James that did something about it in the end. Asked me if I fancied Stubby, then he — what, staged an intervention for you?” he said, turning to Sirius. He’d never got the full story.

“Something like that. Asked me if I fancied you, then when I was a spluttering mess because you were ‘straight as an arrow’, he just sat there as I spluttered myself out.”

“Straight as an arrow?” Remus repeated, amused.

“Yeah, turned out when James pressed me on it I could not recall you ever kissing a girl or asking one to Hogsmeade. You said Mary was lush once, but I had passionately argued at the time that Nadine was hotter, which was also a pile of bollocks, so. Turns out you weren’t.”

“How astute of you.”

“That said, Nadine was definitely hotter.”

“I think at the time my main criteria was ‘least threatening’, not physical attractiveness. On my criteria, Mary was definitely the superior choice. Nadine could hex— could destroy you if you even looked at her funny.”

“Yeah, and therein lies the thrill of it.”

Remus shook his head. “I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree on the relative attractiveness of girls we went to school with. I do hope this doesn’t come between us.”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

Remus rolled his eyes. “So after that, Stubby spent a fortnight getting increasingly antsy, and I suspected him of having some terrible secret, so I cornered him alone to make him confess and instead of revealing a drug problem he kissed me.”

“You make it sound so romantic,” Sirius said sarcastically. “At least tell him I was a good kisser.”

“You still are.”

Sirius puffed out his chest and looked smug.

“And your friends were alright with it?” Rhys asked.

“Of course. I mean, there were — you know, uh, incidents where we were caught with our pants down, sometimes in a less metaphorical sense than others, but James was just happy we weren’t both doing self-destructive bullshit anymore. Peter took a little longer to come around, but he was fine eventually. James would’ve stuck with us through anything.”

“It helped that we beat up anyone who gave us shit,” Sirius said. “So I guess we shouldn’t encourage you to do that, but it worked.”

“Please don’t follow our example, we are not good role models,” Remus said, unable to refute anything Sirius said. A well-placed hex often went a long way.

“Was there a reason you came to see us? Is there someone we need to give a talking to?” Sirius asked.

Rhys shook his head. “No, I just — I just wanted to see that it could, you know, that I could be okay one day. You’re both gay and you’re still here. You’re happy.”

“Yeah,” Sirius said slowly, as if he were only just realising that actually, he _was_ happy. “You’ll be okay, I promise. You might think it’s impossible sometimes, but we made it against all odds, so you will too. Just remember we are still willing to punch people on your behalf.”

Rhys gave them both a look as if thinking them incapable of punching anyone.

“We’re stronger than we look,” Remus said, “and so are you. I know things might be looking grim now, but you’ll make it. Be careful, be safe, and don’t be afraid to tell people you love them. And if you need us to buy condoms for you, we’d much rather you’d ask us than you go without.”

Rhys went red so fast Remus worried a little for his blood pressure, but he nodded.

Soon after, Rhys went home for tea and Remus and Sirius decamped to the living room. 

“I’m thinking chicken curry half and half for tea?” Remus said, curled up on the sofa with his arm around Sirius’s waist.

“Thank God, I had no idea what I was going to cook.”

Remus laughed and pulled Sirius over for a kiss. The war would come to them eventually, but for now at least they had this.

**Author's Note:**

> I could not work out a way to drop in that the pub was called [The Bouncy Druid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGowOnmEHBc), but it is.


End file.
